Press Play Folks Build New Studio, Vehicles In Pioneers

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I think there’s a fundamental human reason why Lego is so popular. The fact is, we all just really, really like building stuff. From the looks of things, Pioneers [official site] is a game all about building stuff, and like Lego, there’s a kind of childlike charm that is drawing me to it. Pioneers is the first game from Lightbulb Games, a new studio founded by former members of Kalimba and Max & The Magic Marker studio Press Play after Microsoft shut them down alongside Lionhead.

“Pioneers is the kind of game we love to make and play ourselves,” says creative director Mikkel Thorsted. “If you look at the games we have made in the past, there’s a shared theme that keeps popping up — creativity. Pioneers is all about that. It’s about using your imagination to create the most awesome vehicles, aeroplanes, boats or whatever you fancy, and use them to explore a new immersive world.”

At this point, there’s not a ton to go on besides the teaser trailer above. In essence, it’s a physics-based construction game that sits somewhere between the goofy inventiveness of Besiege and Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts. Only, by the looks of it, Pioneers isn’t about building machines of war but rather machines for fun. The trailer shows off a few different vehicles, including one that transforms mid-jump from a car into some kind of flying…thing. There’s multiplayer too, and I’m really interested to see what form that takes.

2 Comments

Seems like a legitimate question; there’s a good amount of this sort of physics-vehicle-construction games in Early Access right now.
The team has a bit of pedigree, maybe they could differentiate the game with some sort of story campaign – making these sort of fantastical vehicles is a childhood fantasy, so you could spin a cute yarn about the power of imagination.
Perhaps that’s a bit clichèd; alas, I am a sentimental goober.
Right now it seems like another sandbox dealio, though. I guess we’ll see.